


Varric's Truth

by MelpomeneTears



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-12
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:32:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelpomeneTears/pseuds/MelpomeneTears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As his life is winding down Varric wants to set the story straight; no more fancy stories or flowery tales just the truth.  Who were the White Lion and The Raven? And why couldn't he tell the Seeker the truth all those years ago?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ink and Parchment

Varric glanced at the page laid out before him again and shuddered. The words that flowed out over the page were fairly harmless on their own, but he knew what was to follow and wondered, not for the first time if he had lost his mind. This was a story he wasn’t even sure he wanted to write. It wasn’t the pretty flowery tale he had told so many others, including the Seeker. It was a truth that should probably never be told, should never see the light of day.

But if he was going to die of the illness that seemed to be eating away at his body he wanted someone, anyone to know the truth about the White Lion and the Raven. He had been thinking about it since he had heard about Sebastian and his cadre of men.

Yes, someone needed to know the truth, so he would write it. Whether you considered them heroes or monsters their lives could not help but touch you in some way. So, with the little time he had left in the world he would tell the tale of the last two people he had considered friends and the only two he could ever remember being afraid of. Could they ever forgive him after this? Could he ever forgive them?

In truth it did not matter, his course was already set and there was nothing they could do to him that nature was not already taking care of. And so he read over the words once more listening to their sound, rhythm and flow.

 _The world has a great love for romance and for all the trappings it entails. We mortals love the idea of love at first sight, of love conquering all. Mostly we love the idea of soul mates, that there is that one perfect person out there for us, that one person who will complete us._

 _Do not misunderstand me, the idea is lovely, but sometimes soul mates are a terrible affliction. Sometimes you find each other and drown each other in madness. And sometimes you find each other and drown the world in madness. This is the story of Anders and Sekhmet, a story of a love so strong that not even death would ever part them._

 _A love so hungry it devoured itself and everything in its path; a love so needy that nothing was ever enough. A love that destroyed a chantry, the Templars, Kirkwall and every friendship it ever met; a love that started a war and danced gleefully in the flames._

 _No, sometimes soul mates are the worst thing that could happen to the world ._


	2. The White Lion

It took him sometime to decide where to start, enough of the tale was known that Varric didn’t want to rehash it all. But perhaps some background would help. Picking up his quill and a fresh piece of parchment he started a new page.

_There was no denying she was beautiful, it was an unconventional beauty, but beauty nonetheless. Her skin was as pale as moonlight and her hair was as white as fresh snow. Her eyes were a clear crystalline blue rimmed with darkened lashes as she stared Bartrand down that first day. A phoenix tattoo in purple ink to match her colored lips was emblazoned on her face._

_When she smirked it was right sided and frequent, her smiles and laughter equally as easy to tease from her. It had been intoxicating to speak with her in the beginning. She always gave you all of her attention and she enjoyed humor, especially dark humor. And honestly, she was quite good at stroking a man’s ego._

Varric paused with a smile on his lips. He should know, he had fallen victim to it enough.

_It had been easy to be her friend, though difficult to become one. Sekhmet’s trust was difficult to earn, life’s lessons of cruelty and betrayal had visited her door early in life and she worked hard to protect her sister Bethany from becoming as cynical as she had become. It seemed, at least for a while, that she succeeded._

_Sekhmet had only one passion when she had first come to Kirkwall: mages. A promise to her dearly departed father to protect Bethany from the Circle had become a quest to wipe Templars off the face of Thedas completely. A Templar who crossed her path was often never seen alive again. Sekhmet killed them with a detached, almost cold efficiency._

_It was only Bethany’s compassion that could restrain Sekhmet. Sekhmet could never refuse her sister anything, even sparing the life of a Templar. It should not have surprised us that Sekhmet lost her way and perhaps a little of her mind when she had to condemn Bethany to a life of fighting Darkspawn after the expedition to the Deep Roads._

_Only two people had been witness to Sekhmet’s breakdown in the Deep Roads and both were wise enough, or so we thought, to keep it to ourselves. Blondie had beared the brunt of her anger, fear and despair and had handled it as gracefully as anyone could have._

Varric sat back for a moment and set down his quill. He closed his eyes as he remembered those first days when Sekhmet and Blondie had just met. It had been his suggestion to track the mage down, and even now he wasn’t sure whether he regretted it or not.

When Sekhmet had set eyes on Blondie it was as if the world stopped. Everyone in the room had seemed to notice, except for the two of them. When the mage had started speaking about the oppression of mages by the Templars Varric had realized they might be in trouble. But Bethany had soothed Sekhmet’s angry tirade with only a touch of her hand on Sekhmet’s arm. The stage, as they say, had already been set however.

_As for the Deep Roads, what happened there is still a mystery even to me. We all know what happened to Bethany and how grateful we were to find the Wardens, but Sekhmet had withdrawn in on herself. She did not speak for three days and barely ventured into the light of the fire, preferring the darkness and silence of the Deep Roads._

_Blondie had gone after her finally, unable to take her silence and withdrawal. He walked into the darkness of the corridor and for several minutes there was nothing but the soft rustle of movement and hushed voices. Had they finally decided to consummate their relationship, a way to alleviate the pain?_

_The quiet sounds were rendered asunder by the sharp sound of a loud slap, followed by Sekhmet screaming for Blondie to hit her and another slap before bright blue light flared down the corridor, a single word reverberated through the corridor and shook debris loose from the walls._

_“Stop.”_

_I hurried to reach them, scared for Sekhmet but Justice walked past me seemingly unhurried and calm, well calm for him. Sekhmet was less withdrawn afterwards, the exchange pulling her from the dark place she had fled to but once Justice had subsided Blondie had looked haunted. It was weeks before he looked like himself again._

_After the Deep Roads things became worse. Sekhmet vacillated between humor and anger, seemingly lost without Bethany’s compassion. We all tried to steady her, but fell short, the maelstrom of her personality brushing us aside. Finally, Blondie stepped in, his compassion as a healer benefiting almost the whole city. But for the Templars, it was then that Kirkwall started really raining blood._


	3. The Raven

Another new sheet of parchment lay in front of Varric but he just sat staring at it gnawing on the tip of his quill. His lips would be ink stained and he’d need a new quill but Maker, where did he start with Blondie? The man had been an enigma since the moment Varric had met him.

He hadn’t thought much of the mage when first they met, other than to amusedly observe him and Sekhmet together and that indefinable moment, spark, of whatever it was between them. Varric had thought he was just another apostate, a man with a trick to frighten people with his voice, a healer, but nothing more.

But then the Chantry had come.

 _Blondie had seen that brand on his friend’s forehead and everything turned to sky blue flames and that eerie voice which shook the entirety of the Chantry. The Templars took a step back away from him moving as one, and I followed suit. This was no mage parlor trick and Ancestors it scared the shit out of me._

 _But fears fade with time and familiarity. As time moved on I was drawn to Blondie and his stories about his impossible life. Even with as many things as he shared with me, he kept even more to himself. I never knew whether it was because he didn’t trust me, or simply because he did not want to relive them._

 _His life was the greatest tragedy I had ever heard, still is to this day._

Varric read over the page, then read it yet again. There was a story that he had sworn never to tell, but it was time for the truth, it was the whole point of this piece. Taking a deep breath to still his shaking hand he put the story in writing for the first time.

 _Until he and Sekhmet had become lovers and moved in together Blondie had been careful about keeping his body concealed for the most part, but while living with her it was not unusual to find him padding around the estate barefoot and bare-chested. Even with his body still a bit thin and covered with tattoos, even with all of his scars, there were only ever two things he was self conscious about._

 _The first was the scar in the center of his chest. Any questions about it earned the same response, “It’s a reminder of my mortality.” The second was the tattoo twined around the base of his neck, a permanent collar, a cruel reminder from angry Templars of Blondie’s place in the world._

Varric stopped; his fingers skittered over the page a little, smudging the ink. Blondie had never said it out loud, but that was the tattoo that changed his life, that set him on a collision course with the Chantry and the Templars. He had seen it on his face, the only time he had heard Blondie speak of it.

Varric had tried to imagine himself in Blondie’s place. Would he have come out of the other side of that nightmare unscathed? Varric very much doubted it, and anyway that wasn’t the point, this story was about his friends, not him. So dipping his quill back into the inkwell he picked up the thread.

 _Already a Warden for some months, Blondie had been taken from the city of Amaranthine by Templars. They smited him while he was alone and dragged him away unconscious. Over the next several days, as they travelled, the Templars worked systematically to break the proud mage._

 _They collared him for life with a tattoo around his neck, a constant reminder he would never be free. They beat him, breaking his ribs, his jaw, dislocating his shoulder and at night they strung him up from a tree hanging by his arms, his weight pulling further on the dislocation._

 _He had been convinced he was going to die when a fellow Warden,Nathaniel, found him. He had traveled with Anders to the city and tracked the Templars when he learned Blondie was missing. Nathaniel saved his life, but much of the damage to his psyche would be permanent._

Varric let out a deep breath he had been holding; it was almost a relief to finally share that story. It was time that people understood more about what made Blondie into the man he had become. Feeling lighter, it was easier to move on from there.

 _Blondie was as double sided and as sharp as Sekhmet’s blades. His mercurial nature was hard to take at times. He was funny; it was subtle at first until he could relax around you. And smart, frighteningly so, although I am pretty sure that only Sekhmet and myself ever noticed, the others wrote him off as crazy once he started talking about mages._

 _And why wouldn’t they? He made sure none of the others knew what he had gone through, played off as if his life had been easy. Maybe if he had let them in, would have shared his past they would have taken him more seriously. It might have at least made Broody think twice._

Varric sat back and sighed; now the two of them had been a travesty . So many of the things they had gone through in their lives, so many of the things they had experienced were so similar that they should have commiserated, instead they spent the entire time in Kirkwall sniping at each other.

It didn’t matter now, Fenris was long gone.

He shook his head and looked down over what he had written. Where had he been leading too? Oh, right, the second time Blondie had scared the shit out of him.

 _

Blondie was a powerful mage in his own right, something else he kept to himself. Even Justice seemed reluctant to show his true power in front of others. But in the Deep Roads when they had come upon the hunger demon, Justice had incinerated every creature in the room in the blink of an eye. Even Sekhmet had been shocked as she looked around the room at the piles of ash.

_

 _There had to be dozens of them. And when Sekhmet asked him about it, Justice replied calmly, “They were surrounding us, now they’re dead.”_

 _It was only then that I realized he didn’t really need any of us. Blondie was an army unto himself. I made a vow to myself that day never to cross that man. And from that day until this, I never have. But on the other side of that was Anders’ compassion, his passion for healing._

 _Never had I ever heard of anyone who could heal like he did. There was never an injury we had, or anyone had for that matter, that Anders could not take care of, which was why I spent years pestering him about the scar across his eye and the one on his chest._

 _He never told me about the one in the center of his chest. But he explained the eye was a poisoned shriek blade, now for those that don’t know a shriek is a type of Darkspawn. He had been able to save the eye and rid himself of the poison, but after that was too tired not to leave a scar, still pretty damn impressive if you ask me._

 _For most of the time that I knew him he was two men. The healer that could save dozens of lives in a day and the …I still don’t know what the Void to call him…spirit that could reduce dozens to ash in the blink of an eye._

 _In the early days when we had first met him you could see it happen, like a switch flipped inside his head. I don’t care what he said, he was not of one mind then, they were not the same._

 _That came later_.


End file.
